(post comments) The Web engineer's online toolbox

[izuzak]

This issue is reserved for comments on the blog post The Web engineer's online toolbox. Leave a comment below and it will show up on the blog post's Web page. Thanks!

[tastycode]

http://www.necrohost.com. Provides a list of URLs that simulate a variety of network connectivity issues. Slow response, unresolvable dns, 404 and several other tools.

[hughesey]

Another useful site for the toolbox: http://www.viewdns.info/ - A collection of free, useful DNS tools.

[nemec]

I've found Fiddler to be invaluable for web development.

[lonelycode]

A load testing service should always be part of your toolbox, not just checking page weight, (this may be biased, I'm the founder), so would also recommend adding something like Loadzen

[woutersmet]

I got another one of the 'everyday' category: free private repository hosting!

While github is nice, it's everything but free for your private source control hosting needs. Luckily there is:

• bitbucket.org for free private git + mercurial (does anybody still use that?) hosting
• unfuddle.com for free SVN hosting

[sjparkinson]

+1 for Fiddler.

For multi browser screenshots I find https://browsershots.org/ to be brilliant.

There is also http://isitup.org for the 'monitoring' category.

[duncanbeevers]

Scriptular and Rubular for testing regular expressions in JavaScript and Ruby, respectively.

[duncanbeevers]

JSFiddle for prototyping and sharing JavaScript.

[Dreen]

+1 for jsFiddle, cant live without it
Some from me:

• http://www.lastcalc.com - good online calculator with functions etc
• http://codepad.org - online compiler/interpreter for various langs
• http://10minutemail.com - throwaway email
• http://webshell.io - web api prototyping

[dam2k]

You could try http://www.nuvolabase.com/, a OrientDB based HTTP/REST powerful database on the cloud

[ipartola]

Similar to isitup.com and PingDom, is my project http://www.pingbrigade.com.

[reuf]

1. I like http://jsbin.com/ more than http://jsfiddle.net/
   Showcase: http://jsbin.com/welcome/48741/edit
2. Reset all css to zero before doing your own: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
3. 960 grid system: http://960.gs/ - Generator: http://grids.heroku.com/

[eik3]

• https://onetimesecret.com/ - share a secret (like sending a password over an insecure channel), expires after first view
• https://www.webscript.io/ - "Webscripts are short scripts, written in Lua, that run on our servers. They can respond to HTTP requests or run as cron jobs". Free scripts expire after 7 days.
• http://char.nu/ unicode characters for copy-pasting. You can create your own favorite set.
• http://www.mailinator.com/ disposable email, you can use your own idle domains
• https://openexchangerates.org/ - exchange rates API, 1000 free requests per month (caching is your friend)

And my personal favorite app, not only for documentation:

• https://workflowy.com/

[iignatov]

There's actually a similar "live list" of web development tools. It's called The Toolbox, made by Sacha Greif. If anyone is interested, the source code is on GitHub.

[SachaG]

Thanks for mentioning The Toolbox! But I should mention its source code is just the WP source code, there's nothing special there (and it's not open source, sorry…).

[kentbrew]

Surprised nobody's mentioned http://JSLint.com, or are you all past it? Also, http://web-sniffer.net helped me figure out that my server wasn't doing the right thing with .manifest files when I started messing around with offline iPhone apps.

[eschembor]

http://jsonlint.com - to check that you are getting or returning valid JSON

[redkestrel]

A couple of projects I have:

• http://certlogik.com/ssl-checker/ - to check your SSL certificate installation
• http://certlogik.com/decoder/ - to decode and check your CSRs and SSL certificates

[izuzak]

Hey everyone -- thanks for all the excellent suggestions!

I've updated the list with several new tools, most of which you (or the people on HN and reddit) have suggested:

• Webscript (thanks @eik3)
• Google PageSpeed Insights
• JSONLint (thanks @eschembor)
• JSFiddle and JSBin (thanks @duncanbeevers, @Dreen, @reuf)
• IsItUp and Ping brigade (thanks @sjparkinson, @ipartola)
• ViewDNS (thanks @hughesey)
• Web-Sniffer (thanks @kentbrew)
• Necrohost (thanks @vajrapani666)
• Mirrorrr
• Loadzen (thanks @lonelycode)
• ClickHooks
• SSL Checker (thanks @redkestrel)
• Quilla
• Webshell (thanks @Dreen)

Some of the suggested tools that were suggested but didn't make the list are:

• Fiddler -- it's not a Web app. I'd love it if someone would create a hosted Web app version of Fiddler.
• 960 grid system generator and CSS reset -- they're focused on Web site design.
• NuvolaBase -- for now, I don't want to include free Web app hosting or free DB hosting platforms, but I may extend the list with these in the future.
• Open exchange rates -- API focused on specific application domain. The place to list/search these is Programmable Web.
• Workflowy, LastCalc, Codepad, Mailinator and 10MinuteMail, One time secret and CopyPasteCharacter -- I like the apps, but they don't really do anything specific to Web engineering.
• Browsershots -- I just think of it as a Web design tool since it just gives screenshots (unlike Browserling).
• Scriptular and Rubular -- I personally love regex tools, like ReFiddle, Regex pal and Txt2Re, but I think there would be just too many of such tools and they aren't really focused on Web engineering problems.

Also, thanks @iignatov for a pointer to The Toolbox, that site looks really awesome! I just wanted to create a list focused more on Web engineering (protocols 'n' stuff), less on Web site design.

Thanks again, everyone! Let me know if you come across any new tools.

[DocumentRoot]

For the last section I would suggest www.browserleaks.com site with many interestings. Also there is a vim/emacs-killer of the century - www.sublimetext.com, it replaces me lot of things from your list.

[phstc]

There's also PutsReq, which allows you to record the requests and write the responses using Javascript.

[gs-ajain]

I like to suggest beeceptor. It is multi-purpose tool. building mocked api responses, named endpoints, inspecing request and response payloads.

[petermoorey]

You might like API Mocha, it's a free online API mocking tool. You can submit up to 500 requests/day, customise HTTP responses, simulate delay and download your mocking rules as a Postman collection. I hope to add more functionality soon, related to OpenAPI.

[255kb]

I'd like to suggest Mockoon, a free and open-source mock API creation tool. It's a desktop application, requiring no cloud deployment or account creation. It offers many advanced features like partial mocks creation, dynamic content generation or requests recording.

[nalani5210]

you can try JSON Formatter

[keaeriksson]

I developed Mocki to be able to create simulated and mock API responses. You can set up a mock response in seconds through the website or register to access additional features such as multiple endpoints, randomised errors and conditional responses. You can also use the open source library and host it on your own for free :-)